News

The Languages & Literatures staff are currently working remotely. Please visit http://langlit.ucdavis.edu/staff to view their contact information.

Welcome, to all new incoming and returning students, we’re excited for another great academic year with you. Please stop in to see your Undergraduate Academic Advisor. We have 2 new members of the undergraduate team, Lauren Wong and Vanessa Alvarez.

Professor Sven-Erik Rose's earlier book, Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany 1780-1848 received a major award from the Association for Jewish Studies (AJS). His current research, which delves into the written works created by Jewish peoples during their time interned by the Nazis in ghettos - most famously in Warsaw, Lodz and Vilna - is highlighted in the March 2019 issue released from the AJS.

Lauren Nossett, The Virginal Mother in German Culture. Northwestern University Press, 2019.

Book description:

Congratulations to German graduate student Stefanie Schoeberl, who recently received the Sieglinde Hartmann Prize awarded by the prestigious International Medieval Congress held each year in Leeds, England. Stefanie was awarded this prize "for the best abstract for any paper proposal in the field of medieval German language and/or medieval German literature" for her proposed paper on "Jewelry in the Medieval German Artusroman: Beyond Fiction, Reality, and Expectations."

The German program congratulates Will Mahan for being awarded a Provost's Dissertation Year Fellowship in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences for the 2018-2019 academic year. This is a highly sought-after award for doctoral students and as one of the recipients Will won out over intense competition. The fellowship relieves doctoral students from having to teach or assist faculty in research and provides them a stipend to compensate for the income that they would have earned as a teaching assistant or research assistant.

Congratulations to Professor Gail Finney (Comparative Literature and German), German PhD Candidate William Mahan, and Assistant Professor of German at CSU Fresno (and recent German PhD graduate) Amila Becirbegovic for their contributions to the special issue of the journal Humanities titled Wounded: Studies in Literary and Cinematic Trauma.

Congratulations to German PhD candidate Astrid Exel for being selected from a very competitive pool of candidates to be one of two graduate students who will be representing UC Davis at the Dahlem Humanities Center Global Humanities Summer School at the Free University of Berlin (Freie Universität Berlin) in summer 2018. This year’s program thematic focus is “Principles of Cultural Dynamics." Congratulations, Astrid!

Academic Advisor Amy Lowrey debunks three common misconceptions about majoring and taking courses in the humanities, explaining why it is worthwhile for all students.

View the full post here: https://www.ucdavis.edu/majors/blog/majors-minors/3-mythbusters-about-humanities-majors.

In November Professor Chunjie Zhang was awarded a Humboldt Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. She will use this prestigious fellowship in the coming year to advance her innovative book project: "World as Method: Cosmopolitan Thinking in German and Chinese Modernist Cultures."

Congratulations Professor Zhang!

Congratulations to Professor Jaimey Fisher and to William Mahan for their publications in the recently published Christian Petzold: A Dossier in Issue 84 of Senses of Cinema. Professor Fisher serves as one of the dossier's two guest editors and interviews the title filmmaker, Christian Petzold.

Congratulations to German doctoral candidate Amila Becirbegovic on being offered and accepting a tenure-track assistant professor position in German and Ethnic Humanities at California State University, Fresno!

Amila shared the following about her experience at UC Davis and the German graduate program:

Graduates of the UC Davis German Ph.D. program continue to be successful in the profession. Among their most recent achievements:

Sebastian Heinsohn, who completed his dissertation on the aesthetics and politics of representing the street in German film in June 2009, assumed a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor of German at Bucknell University, beginning Fall 2009.

Caroline Schaumann, who earned her Ph.D. in German here in 1999, earned tenure at Emory University. She now holds the title Associate Professor of German Studies.